Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 6, line 8, after “treatment” to insert the following:“but such medical procedure shall be in accordance with current medical practice in Ireland and circumscribed by regulation”.

This amendment arises because of the discussion on Committee Stage with regard to the different types of abortion procedures. The amendment proposes the term “medical procedures” would be interchangeable with “abortion procedures”. Many people found the graphic descriptions of those abortion procedures which operate in other jurisdictions gruesome, barbaric and medieval. Some people were so upset by the graphic nature of these descriptions, that they regarded it as horrific. My hope is that any Member who regarded them as horrific would vote in accordance with the revulsion they felt.

I am grateful the Minister, during a break on Committee Stage, had gone to the trouble of checking the procedures practised in Ireland. He stated:

I have spoken to the master of Holles Street and I am assured, as of this afternoon, that the practices Senator Walsh describes do not take place in this country. In pregnancies of under 12 weeks, while surgical options are available, the procedures used are primarily medical.

I had described both medical and surgical procedures on Committee Stage. For those who want to disassociate themselves from me or criticise me for giving these graphic descriptions, I must point out it was my third attempt to elicit from the Minister what procedures were allowed under this legislation. The first time, he said he did not want to be prescriptive. The second time I asked whether they were surgical or medical procedures, he also did not answer that. At that stage, I spelt out clearly the different abortion procedures that I had researched well and asked if any of those would be allowed under the legislation. The Minister checked and informed me what procedures are in place.

I accept the procedures are primarily medical. In my earlier submissions, I stated the majority of abortions are medical abortions. The Minister, in his reply to me on Committee Stage, stated:

In cases where the pregnancy is more than 12 weeks, the baby is induced and if it is viable, it will be looked after and saved. Sadly, this cannot be done if it is not viable.

We know the overwhelming majority of babies cannot survive because most abortions are done in the first trimester when there is no possibility of the baby surviving.

I also noted that last Friday afternoon, the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists stated it wanted to allay the fears of the public following statements made in the Seanad. It stated:

The destructive methods described for second trimester termination of pregnancy are currently [note the word “currently”] not carried out in this jurisdiction, nor will they be in the future.

I accept that they are not currently carried out. I certainly hope they will not be carried out in the future but neither the institute nor I nor the Minister nor anybody in this House can guarantee they will not be carried out if we legalise them. The current construction of the Bill legalises each and every graphic procedure about which I spoke in the House.

I went further over the weekend. I am sure some, if not all, Members would have visited the website of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and, in particular, looked at the section on guidelines on the care of women requesting induced abortion. It is worth putting some of what they say on the record. As one can see, it is quite a tome so I do not intend reading other than a few relevant extracts. It states that "abortion on grounds relating to the physical or mental health of the woman or of any existing children can be performed within the law at gestations up to 24 weeks." We are allowing it for gestations up to 39 to 41 weeks.

The guidelines also state that "at all gestations up to this limit, abortion can be performed using either surgical or medical methods; however, different abortion techniques are appropriate at different gestations." They go on to describe a method I described last week and state that "vacuum aspiration is an appropriate method of surgical abortion at gestations up to 14 weeks." They talk about dilation and evacuation, which the Minister assured us would not take place. I am not contesting his belief that it may not take place. When discussing dilation and evacuation, page 63 of the guidelines state that "surgical abortion by dilatation and evacuation (D&E), preceded by cervical preparation, is appropriate for pregnancies above 14 weeks of gestation." This is from the Royal Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in the UK.

I am quoting selectively from some of the guidelines rather than reading the full page. The guidelines state that "D&E is a safe and effective method of surgical abortion following specialised training." We should note in this that there is no form of abortion that is safe and effective for the baby, which is my fundamental point. There is none whatsoever. The guidelines also state that "overall, women who underwent medical abortion were significantly more likely to have a complication than women who underwent D&E (29% versus 4%)." It is very significant for women. We are talking about medical abortions which the Minister and the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists here told us would primarily be the form of abortion used.

The guidelines talk about a recent study from the US which involved a retrospective case note review of 242 women between 14 and 24 weeks gestation undergoing either D&E or medical abortion. The guidelines state that "medical abortion (induction of labour) was associated with higher rates of morbidity compared with D&E for both groups of women." We are talking about medical abortion, in other words, induction of labour, which is what the Minister is planning for here and which the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists is happy to see happen. The guidelines state just as an aside but an aside to which we might return later that "the use of real-time ultrasound scanning during D&E can reduce the perforation rate." There are other aspects in the guidelines, which I have just flicked through, to which I will refer in the debate on other amendments.

What I am asking for is simple. I did not recall it, but I was told on my way into the Chamber today that the Minister had stated at the outset of the debate that he would not accept any Seanad amendment. Will he clarify the position? That decision would horrify me, as the purpose of the Houses is to debate issues. We can debate them as robustly as we wish, but Senators should commit to ensuring the legislation is as good and humane as it can be, regardless of which perspective one has on it. There is no possible way abortion should be allowed under section 9. I fundamentally disagree with that section and will oppose it when we reach it.

This part of the legislation presents a challenge to us all, even those on the Government side who are pro-choice or those who, while being pro-life, have been coerced into supporting the Bill. I use that word advisedly. We must consider what we are doing. "Medical procedure" - the abortion procedure - is defined in the Bill on which Senators voted on Second and Committee Stages as including "the prescribing, by a medical practitioner, of any drug or medical treatment". It does not mention what is excluded because nothing is excluded. The Minister stated he did not wish to be prescriptive. People were so disgusted by my comments because the barbaric practices that I had described were tantamount not just to killing the unborn baby but also to torturing it to death. I am testing-----